Laura Jedeed (Misanthrophile)

At first, it just feels weird. After all, it's only a year. And everyone at home is doing all their at-home shit, and you'll be home soon enough, no big deal Eventually, though, a switch flips. On my FOB, it happened right around the three-month mark (2/)

Your brain, which has experienced deployment every day for a long time, adjusts to this new normal. "Normal" life becomes a foreign memory, and not something that feels real or even possible to return to (3/)

Intellectually, of course, you know it will end. But you don't believe it. You adjust, completely This is around the time shit gets weird (4/)

I transformed from "a chick" to "one of the only available mating partners and surely the hottest woman ever to walk the earth": not as fun as it sounds. Personal conflicts escalated. The monotony was unbearable. Tempers flared. People started going a little bit crazy (5/)

I am telling you this because it's going to happen to us--probably sooner than 3 months In Afghanistan, we were lucky enough to know that the "normal" world still existed: we don't have that right now. We could call home, get pictures, etc (6/)